Sunday, December 12, 2010

With Gra-TEA-tude Thank You Cards

The Project:  Thank You Cards - With Gra-TEA-tude


The Cost: ~ 30.00$ if you dont have anything but since I had most of the stuff it only cost me ~12.00 (This depends on how much paper you already have so price may be lower or higher)This price also includes the black cards and envelopes, labels, and tea bags.

The Story:
This story is actually alittle outrageous and weird. Im not one to do things late so I knew I wanted to have my thank you cards done before the party so that right after the party, I could send them out asap. The last thing I wanted was for people to think we were ungrateful. Sooo, I started looking up Thank You ideas months ago. I started saving the ones I wanted but nothing was really doing it for me. I must have looked up so much stuff one day because one night when I went to bed, I had several dreams about making cards! One of which was the one I created. I woke up I thought I mustve seen this somewhere, theres no way I drempt this. I looked up every possible variation of my card and couldnt find anything! Im sure its out there and someone came up with it before me, but for me, I actually came up with this card in my dreams!! So weird! Anyway, I had used a "gratitude" stamp for a previous card and came up with the "Gra-TEA-tude one for this card enclosing in the card some tea-bags! I thought they were silly but cute so I hope you do too!

First Things First:
1. Figure out how many people you need to send thank you cards to. We needed to make 26.
2. Pick your colors. We kept with the theme of black,white and red.
3. Dont cut or glue your inside thank you until after the party because you obviously dont know what youll get- when you do though, make your notes specific to that person and personal! Dont go the easy route with a generic thank you for all. If you have time to make the cards do them right.
4. Decide the orientation of your card and how it will open. This will you decide how to make your card if you dont want to do it the way I did mine.

What You Will Need:
1. Blank cards with envelopes (Michaels has these in sets of 25 in black and cream. If you get them on sale they are 2/5$. I got 2 packs in black for us)
2. Labels from staples. (I had these already from making the first invites so I didnt need to buy these but you can get them at staples for like 7$ or less with rebate)
3. Plain paper in your color choice (I used red and white)
4. Computer and Printer
5. Tea Bags (We went to the Asian store to keep with our theme and got 50 bags for like 7$)
6. Glue Runner
7. "Handmade with Love" Stamp

Step By Step Directions:
1. Take your designed paper (in my case it was the same black and white we've been using) and cut it so that you can see a 1/4 inch of the black card on every side. So if your card size is 4x6, your base paper will be 3.5x5.5.



2. Do this as many times as you need. We did 26.

3. Turn that paper upside down and take your glue runner to create a square border of glue.

4. Glue it onto the blank card.

5. Do this as many times as you need to.

Its now time to make your "with gratitute" saying and backing. Pick a base color, I chose red and choose a prining paper, we chose white.

1. Choose a size for your backing paper. I think we used 2-2.5 inches.
2. Cut your paper into those 2-2.5inch strips



3. Position your backing paper onto your card and see where you think youll like it. We put ours in the middle.
4. Glue the back of the paper and attach it to the card. Do this as many times as you need to.



Next, go to your computer to make your sayings. Make sure you make them fit into and onto your backing paper. If your backing paper is 2 inches, your saying paper should be 1.5. Do a test copy first on a scrap paper to make sure its to your liking. When you get it to the right size, print on the real paper.

1. Write "With Gra-TEA-tude" in a Word Document. You can do yours any way you want but we did it on two lines and changed the colors around. Play with it and see what you like.


2. Make a sample copy to check its how you want it. Id put the words centered if I were you to make it easier to cut later on.
3. Play with the font and color, then print out.
4. Use your cutter to cut your paper at the size you need (~1.5-2 inches depending)


5. Glue the back of the saying paper

6. Attach it to the backing paper


The front is done! Now for the inside.

1. Choose a backing paper color. We chose white but you can do another color or dont do one at all.
2. Cut the white paper to the size you want
3. Glue run the back and attach to the inside of the card.

4. After your party, whatever kind it may be, then you can continue onto the actual thank you note.
5. Go back into word and set up a text box that is the size of the paper you want to be on the inside. (If your inside backing paper was 3.5x5.5 then your saying paper would be 3x5 or whatever you choose)

6. Type in your thank you note into that size text box.
7. Do this as many times as needed and make it personal!
8. Print
9. Cut
10. Glue run the backs and place them into the inside of your cards.

Insides are almost done! but before we put the tea bags on, you should stamp the back of your card. If you do the tea bags first, the stamp will be harder to do because it wont be a flat surface anymore.

11. Stamp your "handmade with love" or whatever stamp you have


12. Go back to the insides and start gluing in your tea-bags. We did two per thank you.



There you have it! A cute, fun way to say thanks! We used these for engagement thank yous but you can make these for any occasion and in any color. Very versatile!

Hope you enjoyed this project! If anyone makes these, let me know how you liked them or how to improve upon my card! Id love to hear from you!!

Thanks for reading! Keep checking back for future postings as we keep DIYing toward the Aisle <3